The Conflict in Gaza

by Editor
July 31, 2014 at 12:36 pm

https://www.smartertimes.com/1257/the-conflict-in-gaza

A Times dispatch from Kansas City, Mo., about an appearance there by President Obama reports:

The president was informal and relaxed, interacting with a crowd that was quick to respond, cheering and booing — a bit of a foil to a number of signs outside the theater before his speech protesting his policies on immigration, the conflict in Gaza and other issues.

That is a mess of a sentence for quite a few reasons. The part that says "his speech protesting his policies on immigration" is confusing and makes it sound like the president gave a speech protesting his own policies. The phrase "on immigration, the conflict in Gaza and other issues" modifies "signs", not "speech," and should be placed closer to the word it modifies. The signs weren't "protesting" anything — the people holding them were. If the Times reporter or editor thinks the protesters outside the presidential event are newsworthy enough to rate a mention, it would help readers to be more specific. Were the protesters saying his immigration policies are too lax or too strict? Is "the conflict in Gaza" the Times' phrase or the protesters'? If it is the Times' phrase, it is misleading, because the conflict, after all, is not just in Gaza, but in Gaza and in Israel, where Hamas terrorists are launching rockets at Israeli civilians and digging underground tunnels for the purpose of killing or kidnapping Israelis. And "and other issues" is so vague as to make the sentence end with a faint whimper.

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